The head of state of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is considered the closest ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now he is inviting other countries to join the union state of Belarus and Russia and has a strange bait up his sleeve: there could be “nuclear weapons for all”.
“No one objects to the fact that Kazakhstan and other countries have the same close ties with the Russian Federation as we do,” Lukashenko said in an interview with Russian state television published on Sunday evening.
Placement of nuclear weapons in Belarus
“If anyone is concerned… (then) it is very simple: join the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone.” Russia is currently working on its plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in its neighbor Belarus, which also borders Ukraine. It would be the first time such nuclear warheads have been deployed outside Russia since the end of the Soviet Union in December 1991. This is a matter of concern in Western countries.
Lukashenko added that this is his own opinion – not Russia’s. One must “understand strategically” that the governments in Minsk and Moscow have a unique opportunity for unification. Russia and Belarus form a union state representing a borderless union and alliance between the two former Soviet republics. Here are his original words:
Improved military cooperation
Lukashenko is also the closest ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin among Russia’s neighbors. The military used Belarusian territory as a staging area for its invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. Since then, military cooperation between Belarus and Russia has intensified with joint maneuvers on Belarusian soil.
Memorandum of Budapest
On Sunday, the Belarusian Defense Ministry announced that another unit of the S-400 mobile surface-to-air missile system had arrived from Moscow and that the systems should soon be ready for combat. During the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons were already stationed in Belarus.
In December 1994, several years after the collapse, the US, Russia and Britain committed themselves in the Budapest Memorandum to maintaining the territorial independence and sovereignty of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. In return, these three former Soviet republics renounced the nuclear weapons stationed on their territory.
What was then the world’s third largest arsenal of strategic and tactical nuclear missiles was stored in Ukraine, but Russia had operational control over it. These weapons from Ukraine went to Russia in 1996 or were destroyed.
Source: Krone
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